Our understanding of the regulation of hematopoiesis at the molecular level has greatly increased over the last few years. There has been a rapid identification of the transcription factors that control both differentiation and the signal transduction pathways that contribute to proliferation and maintenance of the stem cells and lineage committed cells. The precise role for many of these has been often been dramatically illustrated through the derivation of mice that lack individual genes or combinations of genes. A major challenge at present it is the integration of the information derived from these studies to develop a better overall understanding of how the various aspects of hematopoiesis are integrated. A goal of this meeting is to bring together investigators working on various aspects that are frequently not bright together such as signal transduction and transcription factors in differentness in homotopies. By bringing these investigators together it is anticipated that the knowledge exchange and the discussion that arise will lead to the formulation of new concepts and approaches to studying homotopies. It is also anticipated that by combining the various aspects of hematopoiesis, the meeting will be an outstanding forum for students, postdoctoral fellows and investigators to obtain a broad a broad overview of the current status of research in hematopoiesis.